


Dance Because There's Nothing Else to Do

by dogitemi



Category: Karanduun (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Fwiendship, Gen, Liyo has always been a little shit, Lola Remy has always been the Buff Bunny copypasta, Prequel, They're perfect together, ye i know nothing about prisons halata ba
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogitemi/pseuds/dogitemi
Summary: Liyo and Lola Remy met in prison.
Kudos: 1





	Dance Because There's Nothing Else to Do

**Author's Note:**

> We didn't really have the bonds mechanic yet when we started the Dimahuli STN HNTRS campaign, so I've always liked thinking about how the group got started. I have my own headcanons about origin things, but aside from the "ask the player on your right" thing, I do remember there was a joke-haha-unless? that Lola Remy and Liyo knew each other in prison because Liyo kept doing TikTok dances.
> 
> That four-month-old brainworm has now manifested and what was meant to be a quick comfy lola-apo meet-cute (But In Prison!) turned out to be.... this. sowwy

Good music is hard to find in prison - and the guards' taste in radio stations was complete dogshit. Still, Liyo made do. It rained last night, and the rainwater dripping loudly into the bars of the tiny cell window was steady. _Plink. Plink. Plink._

He'd been practicing this routine for a couple days now - the Official™ choreography for a fairly new pop song, or at least it was new before he was arrested - and always fumbled the bit near the end where he had to do some weirdly-timed sidestep spin before the bridge kicked in.

Truth be told, he wasn't all that determined to get the whole thing right today. If he got the routine down pat now, he would have to find some other dance to practice tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, on and on and on. Maybe he'd even have to come up with his own choreography if he got sufficiently bored, ugh. 

_Plink. Plink. Plink._ Liyo hummed the opening notes, crouched on the floor, and then pow - he launched into the steps, crooning the lyrics he knew and mumbling the ones he didn't. (Hey, he never claimed to be a singer.) _Plink. Plink_ . His body had gotten familiar with these movements so he ran running commentary in his head - that drop was sloppy… pop, pop, hold it, _hold it,_ then GO, YES, that was HOT, and _here we fucking go…_

It was the part that tripped him up. Liyo had hit his groove, so maybe this time…

_Plink._

_Plink._

The dripping had slowed. The rhythm was off. Now, Liyo could have kept going, but all his motivation vanished. His singing trailed off as he placed his foot in the wrong position, too soon, and the move ended up graceless.

"God _dammit_ ," Liyo swore, even though he really wasn't all that upset. He lay spread-eagle on the cold floor. "It was the rain! It… it threw me off," he continued, hoping someone in this godforsaken building had been listening to him dancing, "That move is weird as hell though, like, why would you slide the-"

"Shut the FUCK up, fairy bitch!" someone barked. A few scattered chortles followed.

"Rude!" Liyo called out.

"You're too goddamn loud," another man added. Liyo thought he needed a cough drop. "No one gives a flying shit about you, kid."

Liyo swept his limbs as if making a snow angel. "Is that what your mom said before you came in here?"

"Calipusan."

The voice was gruff, urgent. Liyo knew it belonged to the boar-headed, perpetually sweaty guard, Cortes, so he took his time propping himself up on his elbow and folding his leg. _Paint me like one of your French girls._

"What's up, boss?" Liyo said.

Cortes was unamused. "Visitor. You know who."

"Oohhh, maybe it's my dad. He's finally come to see his beautiful son languishing away in this, this-" Liyo gestured to the room, searching for the word. He was being dramatic on purpose, but he'd started this bit without planning on a punchline. No matter. "Concrete… institution. Yeah! Ah, fuck, that wasn't spicy enough… anyway, Cortes, how do you keep forgetting my surname is actually Hipolito-Calipusan? It's two names. Like, yeah, saying them both is a bit of a mouthful, but if you wanna be accurate, then-"

Cortes unlocked the cell, swinging it open with an ear-splitting squeak. He glared down at Liyo.

"Fine, I'm getting up, Sir," Liyo mumbled, pushing himself up off the floor and making a big show of dusting himself.

He followed the guard - "Little cranky today?" Liyo couldn't help commenting, though blessedly he wasn't heard - and, seeing the various inmates on both sides of the wide hallway looking at him with disgust, considered sticking his tongue out at them. Wait, no, this was prison. He had to make a big boy gesture.

He flipped off both sides with both hands as he passed by. When this earned him curses and groans, Liyo smiled and made a kissy face at them. Cortes tried very hard to ignore this, choosing to stomp along his way as normal.

It was safe to say that Liyo was not popular around these parts. Good. He worked hard to be this annoying. (But not too hard. He knew his personality was grating even when he wasn't trying. All he had to do was try.) He was fairly sure everything in this prison that could breathe wanted him quiet or dead.

He was wrong.

The cell across Liyo's was barely lit, so much so that few could tell there was anyone in it. That is, if not for the pair of yellow eyes glowing in the corner. Liyo never noticed, but they had been watching him intently today… as they have nearly every day since he had arrived.

As Liyo disappeared from their view, the eyes narrowed, then shut, vanishing into the shadows.

* * *

Crisostomo's job title was technically just to be Liyo's dad's assistant. Liyo wasn't sure if his contract included bribing the guards to ensure Liyo was comfortable for his entire sentence, but this had been an almost weekly task for the poor man.

Liyo felt bad for him, but not bad enough to not place his order.

"I've been craving Oks Manoks for forever, my god," Liyo began, sitting down before the tired-looking man, whose feathered arms placed a barrier between them. Maybe he should've started with a hello, how've you been, but Crisostomo did not like wasting time with small talk. "So… definitely Oks Manoks, ASAP. If they have spicy ones, get some, but don't fill the entire bucket with them. What else… ooh, Kowching noodles. Yes, please. The chicken one - extra soup - and then the sweet and sour pork platter. And egg rice. Then I think I'll finish the week with… hmmm. Burritos from HHD?"

"HHD?" Crisostomo repeated in monotone.

"Hukbo | Hukbong Dagat, dude. Get with the times. That should be good."

"Any non-edibles you want delivered?"

"Not today, no."

"Noted." Crisostomo, who had been scribbling into a notepad, flipped it shut. He stood. "You'll receive your meals-"

"An hour after the regular inmates' lunch period, yeah, I know. Hey, Cris, my guy-"

"Sir, I really have more important places to be right now."

"I know, but, uh." Liyo bit his lip. He knew he would probably get the usual answer, but he could never help asking. "How's… Dad? Has he asked about me?"

Being Aurelio’s assistant meant your (thankfully hefty) salary covered mediating between father and son; they seemed incapable of talking to each other without a third party, Aurelio especially. Crisostomo had always done this in his years at this job, but even more so now that Liyo was in prison.

Crisostomo, Liyo knew, was choosing his words carefully. “He is as absorbed in his work as ever. He’s making sure he has the means to provide you with as much as he can, and as much as the…” Crisostomo’s eyes darted quickly to the guards standing stoic around them. “... _correction officers_ will allow. So do know this: you are on his mind, and often. But...”

The pause went on for far too long. “...he has… not asked me anything about you. Um, recently. To my recollection.”

“Of course,” Liyo sighed. The disappointment still wrapped around his heart and squeezed, cold and heavy in his chest. He let out a laugh. “What did I expect? Hey, you know what, Cris? Get me a cake too - list that down. Big one with the gum flowers and the jam inside. Remember my one ninong’s wedding?”

Liyo propped a foot up against the table edge and pushed his chair back. “Buy me that. I’ll eat it all week. Take care of yourself, Cris. See ya.” He stood, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away.

Cris sputtered, “S-sir, you know how expensive something like that would-”

“It’s not my money, is it?” Liyo called out, not turning, “I’m sure Dad wouldn’t mind. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even notice it at all!”

* * *

A day later, and Liyo was slumped over the lunch table, with a cut above his eyebrow bleeding and bursts of color in his vision. The only thing that really surprised Liyo was that this didn’t happen sooner.

It was inevitable, really, that one day an inmate would notice that Liyo never touched his food except to sip tentatively at the clear soup, a regular guessing game of his - it was tinola today, _maybe_ \- and always rushed back to his cell early. Said inmate - a bulky man who seemed to be made of more wooden augmentations than flesh - would raise this fact up to Liyo’s face, mentioning his theory that the little rich boy was getting far, far better treatment because of daddy’s money. And then Liyo would respond, not just making no attempt to deny this, but stick in a good ol’ rib at the guy - he wouldn’t remember what it was. Something something wart on your dick, something something in your wife. And then a wooden fist would come flying at his face.

Anyone could say it was just a matter of time.

Liyo was picked up off the table by the back of his shirt, and before he could react - _thud!_ \- the knee that crashed against his ribcage knocked the wind out of him.

Okay, okay. This was expected. The jeering, the sadistic satisfaction. No inmate would even think to help him. What was unexpected was how much this _fucking hurt_ . Liyo knew it would, but not like _this_ , where fireworks were going off in his lungs and every throb of his head sent neon flashes through his vision. But the guards, he knew, would break up the fight…

Another fist in his gut. Liyo crumpled. Someone bashed his head against the floor.

Cortes and the gang were taking their fucking sweet time.

A foot - a hoof, maybe - that was probably meant for Liyo’s face missed, but it was no less painful when it struck his shoulder.

Amid the white hot pain coursing through Liyo’s body, his first real thought of the moment emerged. He may have annoyed the guards far more than he should’ve. Now they were taking his dad’s money _and_ not doing a goddamn thing as he was getting the lights beaten out of him.

 _Those fucking assholes_.

Liyo was picked up, pinned against the wall. _Pow!_ Fist in the face, definitely wooden. Fuck, well, fuck them, it wasn’t like Liyo would’ve kicked up this much of a mess - _krak!_ \- if he wasn’t sure he could defend himself, even in the occasion that the guards turned out to be fucking useless. Something warm was pouring down his face, and he figured it was just the afterpain of the punch to his nose - there was the sharp pain of impact, and then there was the burning _afterpain_ , Liyo was beginning to realize - until he tasted the blood.

He was yanked, slammed back against the wall. Laughter. There was definitely a crowd now.

Okay, okay, Coherent Thought Number 2: dance, like the umalagad taught him. And then he’d be safe! Heads would explode! Or some shit. Liyo scoured his head for simple dances, one he could do while he felt like gelatin was jammed down his eyesockets and something sharp under his skin felt wrong against his churning insides, broken, yep, something inside him was broken-

He wouldn’t be able to dance. He _couldn’t_. Not with someone twisting his arms behind him like this. Not when sound was swimming strangely through his eardrums, at once quiet and entirely too loud, drowning out the internal beat he always danced to.

_I could die here._

Suddenly he was dropped into a heap on the floor.

The main guy - was it really just one guy beating him up, or a lot? Did it matter? - towered over him, and he said something that kind of sounded like “Got anything else to say, little bitch?”

What the hell was it that activated this… this _thing_ that Liyo did? Not dance, no, though that was the easiest way to do it before then. Art. Performance. It was coming back to him. _Art is the blade._ If his body was screaming in too much pain to dance, and he couldn’t gather whatever crumbs of musical talent he had to sing…

Liyo sat up. Wiped some of the blood off his face, although this only accomplished smearing more across his cheeks. And, voice rough, bellowed-

“ _Isa, dalawa, tatlo!_ ”

The crowd stood, confused. Liyo continued, “ _Mahal, nawala ka sa buhay ko_.”

It was a truly shitty poem. Liyo felt he almost deserved the kick that came at him for the next god-awful verses, all of which he wrote in high school. Whatever. He didn’t have to sell the performance - though his spoken word poetry was less _spoken_ so much as sputtered and _choked out_ \- he just had to make it entertaining for the ancestor spirits he knew were watching.

Maybe Liyo just ruptured something, but as he kept reciting he felt something build in his gut, something like the familiar confidence when he danced with intention, and before he knew it-

“Move aside! Move _aside_ ! Fucking _hell,_ what is this?!”

Liyo pushed aside the mostly-wooden man.

The man’s top half, at least.

His severed legs collapsed on their own.

Liyo could celebrate about cleaving an entire man through the force of _cringey poetry_ later, when he was getting treated for all the screaming pain in his body, but now it felt like the entire prison was yelling and grabbing at him, guards and inmates alike, terrified, enraged. 

“That’s enough,” a woman’s voice rang out.

The air in the whole hall changed. The sudden silence was almost reverent.

Liyo blinked away as much blood as he could, turning to where he thought the lady spoke. Though he couldn’t hear her footsteps, the crowd parted.

It was an old lady. Not just old; practically ancient, her skin deeply wrinkled and hanging over her thin frame, long, lank white hair flowing over her back. (They reminded Liyo against his will of decades-old cobwebs.) Although she had a regal posture, from the waist up she looked like she could be snapped in two by the wind… until he saw her eyes. She wore rectangular glasses with thick lenses, from which yellow eyes with razor-thin slit pupils glared dangerously.

The venom in her glare automatically made Liyo’s gaze drop to the ground to avoid looking her in the eye, and he saw that underneath her skirt was a thick, serpentine tail, trailing for several yards behind her.

“If you children are going to fight, I would say you better just stab each other,” she continued, “But it looks like the young man’s already gone too far with that. Are you going to continue squabbling like barnyard animals in all this blood, or are you going to take the victor to get treated and the loser to get buried?”

Everyone seemed to be frozen in place.

“Or you can _eat_ him. No point being picky about where you get your gahum. That man’s… Inocencio, isn’t he? Let him be more useful to you lot in death if not while he was alive.” She paused, her gaze sweeping across every face in the room. “Well? No one’s going to take the poor boy while he’s bleeding out? _Fine_. Let the old lady do all your work for you, why don’t you? Every generation just gets more and more disrespectful…”

The old snake lady slithered forward, took Liyo’s arm from the newly meek guard holding him, and slung it around her shoulder. He became painfully aware that this splattered blood onto her brown blouse and shrank back, afraid she would direct her anger at him. Instead she asked, “You can try to walk, can’t you, iho?”

“I- I can do it, Lola.”

There was a small gasp, somewhere among the onlookers behind them. Even in this state, Liyo turned and said, “What? Am I not allowed to call lolas Lola? Fucking hell.”

“Save your strength and stop talking.” Her voice was stern, but not venomous.

 _Bold of you to assume my strength doesn’t_ come from _my talking_ . It was already on the tip of his tongue, but if this old lady scared everyone - _everyone_ \- in this prison this much… Liyo swallowed. “Sorry, boss.”

* * *

The lady tending to Liyo - a faceless, sentient stone statue who communicated via words in an ornate, inky script appearing where her face should’ve been - should’ve objectively been more terrifying than the snake grandma who stood against the wall opposite him, watching. But the creepy stone lady had washed him up, bandaged him, laid him on a narrow bed that squeaked when he moved, and made him drink all sorts of painkillers. She was clearly here to help him. The grandma looked at him like she was debating which of his kidneys she would carve out first.

So he was upset that Stone Ate had informed him a few of his ribs and (more importantly) his nose were broken and would take a painful month or more to heal, but not as upset as when she left to get God-knows-what and he was alone with the snake grandma. If he wasn’t pumped full of drugs, Liyo knew his heart rate would’ve gone through the roof.

The silence dragged on, and then grandma said, “It won’t take a month. Don’t worry.”

Liyo remembered how quickly she got upset at the lack of response from the crowd, so even though his mouth felt like it was lined with cotton he sputtered a noise that sounded like “Hweh?”

“People like us heal a lot faster.”

“Ah. Hmm. Cool.”

More silence. The grandma folded her arms together.

Liyo was beginning to think her murderous expression was just… how she looked. Resting kidney-carver face, if you will. She was fidgeting with the bloodstains on her blouse, and pushing her glasses up even though they were perfectly fine. He could swear she seemed unsure of what to say next. "I didn't catch your name," she finally said.

"I mean…” Talking eased his nerves - and, yeah, he liked the sound of his voice even when it was hoarse, _sue him_ , so Liyo continued, “Considering everyone here seems to call me a skinny whore or faggot or Calipusan, which is my dad's fucking name… not surprised. I’m, uh, Liyo."

"Liyo… Calipusan, is it?"

"Hipolito-Calipusan."

She raised an eyebrow.

“That’s literally my legal surname. Like, funny story, I was supposed to just have my mom’s maiden name - Hipolito, y’know - but my dad’s parents wouldn’t let him have it, so they put them together. And, yeah, I know my full name never fits in the blanks on forms and exams and stuff, so I was okay with being just Calipusan in, like, school, I guess, but after the trials and shit to get me here I was thinking I really should fight to be recognized as a Hipolito, too, even though technically I _am_ a criminal now and my relatives on my mom’s side wouldn’t be stoked about that.”

Liyo figured he lost the old lady somewhere around mentioning forms and exams, so he cleared his throat - a painful task - and asked, “And you?”

"Remedios.”

Liyo waited for her to mention a surname. She did not.

“No one calls me anything else because I don't allow anything else, except maybe one other title. I can’t help people hearing that.”

“Oh. Um, what do they call you then, L- Remedios?”

She picked at a thread in her sleeve. “Ang Binibini ng Himagsikan.”

The Maiden of the Revolution. Liyo heard the name mentioned a few times in the months he’d been here, especially when it was concerning the location of his cell - his father’s lawyers ensured he would end up in a good cell in one of the better prisons in Biringan. He eventually assumed, from the hushed way people would say it, that it was a euphemism. ("I heard the maiden of the revolution tore a bakunawa's wings barehanded." That could be, like, drug lingo. You never know.) He suspected nothing about the cell across his. The handful of nights he’d woken up and could kind of make out a dark pile in the cell’s farthest corner, Liyo only figured that it was being used as storage.

"Um, why do they call you that?"

Remedios shrugged. "Maybe because I've fought a lot of powerful people over the years. People seem to be impressed hearing about all my enemies. Well, I at least think I have the proper number of enemies for someone my age."

"But my lola's about your age-"

"I doubt that."

Liyo blinked. "And… she just… has a lot of friends."

"Good for her. I hope they're better than mine. One of _my_ friends stabbed me in the back and landed me here."

"Oh. F."

"F?"

"Nothing, it's just…" Liyo looked away. "Slang. That, um… that sucks."

Remedios pushed her glasses up again. "Liyo," she said, after another silence. It was almost strange to hear his name again; even Crisostomo avoided addressing him with it when he could. “If you like, I could ensure everyone just calls you Liyo around here, instead of…"

It took a moment for this to process. "Oh, no, I don't mind. They're not calling me anything that isn't already true. I mean, I am a skinny faggot whore, Lo- I - I mean, Remedios. Sorry."

The ghost of a smile graced her face. "Lola Remy," she said, "If you're having such a hard time with it, you can just call me Lola Remy, iho."

"O-okay."

The door swung open, and in walked the Stone Ate informing him that he would be 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓃𝑒𝓍𝓉 𝓉𝓌𝑜 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒸𝓁𝒾𝓃𝒾𝒸. At this, Remedios - Lola Remy - said, "Then I'll be going. Ah, shame I won't be seeing you dance tomorrow."

She uncurled her tail from its neat heap on the floor. "You'll be fine, Liyo. You'll be right as rain before you know it." She looked at him, scrutinized the bruises and bandages on his body with those yellow eyes, now looking… if not friendly, then at least a little less murderous. "Besides, now that I look at you, you're not that badly hurt. White Flower would do the trick."

"My… bones are broken, Lola."

"And?" She tutted. "I better smell the efficascent oil on you when you return. Now that you know you have an audience when you dance…" She held the door open, the rest of her tail slithering forward, "...I'll be making requests!"

She was gone before Liyo could manage a "Bye, Lola Remy."

**Author's Note:**

> my favorite thing abt lola remy is the fact that although she is a terrifying ancient warrior she is also just a tired old lady with no social skills
> 
> which is harder to write than a little brat so ganbatte @ me writing the more remy-centric chapter 2 i guess lmao


End file.
